I'll bet you guys are excited for this one, huh? Are you excited? I'm excited!
As per usual, I own nothing; Enjoy :)
It was two o' clock in the morning, in the middle of a howling thunderstorm, when the Professor found himself—quite inexplicably—awake.
He sat up slowly in bed, tossing the blankets aside. Knowing without a doubt, now that he was awake, that there was no chance of him going back to sleep, he moved to the edge of the mattress, flicked on the lamp, and got to his feet. He was still in his pajamas, but given the obscenely late hour, he hardly felt bothered by it. Crossing to the other side of the room, he gently eased the door open; ever-mindful of the squeaking hinges, so as not to disturb his students' slumber. Charles made his way out into the shadowed corridor, listening to the rain pelting the windows. A flash of lighting streaked brilliantly across the sky, followed almost immediately by a deep, resonant roll of thunder that shook the Mansion to its sublevels.
By the look of things, it seemed as though at least one other person wasn't sleeping very well, either. Oh, Ororo… He sighed wearily.
It had been six months. Six months, and yet the scene he was forced to relive night after night was always the same...
He and Erik crossed paths with one another in the quiet suburb where Jean had once lived as a young girl; the two of them—side by side—entered the house just as they had so many years prior, though at the time of this particular meeting, each man was on an entirely different mission than the other. They discovered that regardless of the time gone by, the house had been left relatively unchanged; with the exception of the fact that various objects and pieces of furniture could be seen floating in midair. Entering the living room they came upon Jean, sitting alone, levitating and then releasing the contents of the room with her mind; her hands curved into claws on the arms of her chair.
A vicious, burning fury in her eyes as she raised her head to glare daggers at him. Guarded; aggressive.
Unyielding.
Not a trace was left of the woman he had come to regard so dearly as a part of his—albeit unconventional—family. She had been one of his most remarkable students; one of his first, in fact. Never had she lacked in courage, intelligence, or strength. But in the end, none of that had been enough to save her. The Phoenix—an entity that he had fought for so long to keep at bay—inevitably, mercilessly, overwhelmed her.
Her enduring and fearless protector at Alkali Lake ultimately became the bringer of her destruction… and Charles'.
He would never, so long as he lived, forget that moment; when, by that sinister Force's might, time itself had stood still. Jean's once-beautiful face twisted and warped in an expression of pure, fathomless hatred; never seen—before or since—by him, nor anyone else. Her eyes as black as Hell and twice as forbidding; dark violet and crimson veins strikingly visible against her pale skin; a wild, twisting mane of scarlet hair fanning out behind her in the harsh wind that sprang forth seemingly from nowhere. Her arms outstretched at her sides as she held him telekinetically suspended, his legs dangling uselessly, two feet off the ground.
Erik screamed for her to stop this from somewhere behind him.
Charles made one, final effort to bring her back to reality.
"Don't let it control you..."
Turning his head slightly, he saw Logan, looking on in horror from the doorway, trapped on the ceiling in the next room and utterly helpless to do anything but watch; the Professor met the Wolverine's wide, fearful eyes…for the last time.
He smiled.
"Noooooo!"
"CHARLES!"
And then he woke up.
For the better part of a year, the nightmare hadn't changed. But for the first time since coming back (unexpectedly and rather miraculously) from the "Other Side", as it were—in the form of a patient of Moira's who had been in perfect health (and blessedly devoid of spinal injuries), though wholly brain-dead for decades—he had somehow managed to get a decent night's sleep; which he had been thoroughly enjoying, before it had been interrupted. Bringing him back to the question of whom or what had woken him and, more to the point, how?
He knew that despite the noise, it hadn't been the tempest raging outside. He didn't have an answer as to how he knew, just that he did. Perhaps it had been one of the children, or even a member of his team. Charles was well aware that he wasn't the only one in this house that was haunted by painful memories late at night; he'd been roused by others unintentionally projecting their bad dreams into his mind, both when he was asleep and when not, on more than one occasion. Such was the occupational hazard of being a telepath with a houseful...
As was a habit for him on nights like this, the Professor took a deep breath and stretched out his mental field; scanning the minds of the institute's other residents to find out exactly where the trouble was. Besides himself, he sensed only three others that were, predictably, awake—Ororo, Logan, and Rogue—while everyone else was sound asleep, their minds calm and undisturbed. He concentrated harder.
Ororo and Logan were in the kitchen, sitting opposite one another at the table, both of them hunched forward over steaming mugs of tea (she had thought it might help—it hadn't). Neither spoke, lost as they were in their own thoughts; She, gazing out the window, her namesake stirring up a wind forceful enough to rattle the diamond-paned glass; He, staring at a spot on the table unseeingly, the overabundance of pain and death he had witnessed in recent memory leaving him numb.
The scene made Xavier's heart ache, and he gently pulled back the sphere of his mind, respectfully leaving the two of them to grieve in private. Moving away from the kitchen to the library, he found Rogue. She was curled up in one of the plush armchairs in front of the fireplace, a small flame still burning warmly in the grate, with a blanket spread over her legs and a book in her gloved hand. The sight was at once familiar and disheartening.
Ever since her mutation had fought off the so-called "Cure", and she had gotten her powers back, Rogue had become even more withdrawn than when she had first arrived at the school with Logan three years ago. She had been devastated when she'd realized that her one chance at a normal life had failed her; it had taken weeks for her to speak so much as a word to anyone. She was still largely unsociable but thankfully, in the last month or so, Charles had seen her start to come around again; slowly, but surely. And the two of them were working harder than ever, now, on her learning to gain control of her ability. After all he had seen and done in his life, he refused to believe it was unachievable. He wouldn't give up hope.
With a sigh, he retreated, too, from the young woman sitting by the fire; secure in the notion that like the others, she had been awake for at least the last few hours, and so hadn't been the one to disrupt his sleep. Strange, he thought, leaning his palms against the windowsill and looking out into the night…
He was about to return to his room, resigned to tossing and turning his way back to sleep, when an odd sight on the far edge of the grounds caught his eye; a flock of birds flying, quite suddenly, away from their perches in the treetops of the forest. The Professor blinked; what on Earth was the matter with them? The storm was gradually beginning to die down, the thunder and lightning having long since passed. Only the rain lingered on. Something must have frightened them; and Charles being Charles, it was impossible not to be curious what. Once more, he expanded the reach of his mind, searching the woods for signs of disorder.
A second later he was racing to the kitchen as fast as his newly-acquired legs could carry him.
The sound of running feet coming toward them made his shoulders tense up, shaking him out of his bitter recollections and instantly putting him on alert. Out of the corner of her eye, 'Ro must have seen him move, because she turned to look at him questioningly.
"…What?" He held a finger up to his lips and pointed to the door by way of reply. Her brows knit together in confusion.
"What is it, Logan," she asked. He shot her a look from across the table, telling her without words to stop talking and pay attention. She rolled her eyes, but decided to humor him (his instincts hadn't been wrong, yet) and waited, listening intently for any signs of something amiss. She didn't have to wait long; a beat later, Charles burst into the room, panting, white-faced and utterly shaken.
Logan sighed exasperatedly, shaking his head at the sight.
"Jesus, Chuck, don't do that," he said, irritated; he had thought they were under attack. Again. "What, did you feel like getting shish-kabobbed? It's…," he looked over at the clock on wall, "…two-thirty in the morning—where's the fire?"
"Logan," Ororo admonished shortly, before moving to stand beside her mentor. "Charles, what's wrong?" The Professor shook his head.
"No time," he told them, crossing purposefully to the catch-all drawer next to the sink and rummaging through it until he drew out a flashlight. Without a word, he motioned for them to follow him and took off out the door to the grounds. In the middle of the night. While it was still raining.
Logan and Ororo stared after him as he ran out into the storm, turned to look at each other with mirror expressions of disbelief, and then finally ran to catch up with him. They called out, trailing not far behind as he headed for the woods at the edge of the property, but he paid them no mind.
"Where are you GOING?!"
"Charles!"
They had no choice but to follow, picking their way over twigs and fallen branches and trying not to end up face-first in the mud; or bang into trees. A task easier said than done.
"Damn it," Logan muttered, following the shaking beam of Charles' flashlight—which was proving difficult the thicker the trees became—while still attempting to figure out what in the Hell had possessed the man to leave the Mansion right now and go running through the forest in the dark. But before he could shout his question at the telepath's retreating back, a foreign voice filled his head.
There's someone out here, Logan.
The Wolverine winced at the sudden invasion of his thoughts; he really hated when Chuck did that. He shook his head to clear it, and then pressed back.
You're sure?
Looking ahead, he saw that the beam from the flashlight had stopped moving; he slowed down until he, and Ororo, finally reached Charles' side.
"Positive," the man replied grimly.
They were standing on the rim of a small crater. Leaves and branches of varying sizes were scattered chaotically all around them; it looked as though a bomb had gone off. Now that he was able to really listen, Logan realized he couldn't hear anything out here—even the rain had faded out. He turned just in time to see the last vestiges of swirling white mist leave Storm's eyes, looking from her to his soaked clothes and back again, a sarcastic remark about how it would've been great if she had thought to do that before on the tip of his tongue; but then he saw the look on Charles' face, and followed his gaze down to the center of the clearing. The sight knocked the wind out of him.
"…Holy Shit."
AN: Okay, a couple things real quick, for those who are curious (or confused, as the case may be); this is set after X3, and references the end credits scene from the film where Charles comes back from the dead. Unfortunately, I couldn't save Jean, but she already died and came back once, ya know? She's a mutant, not a cat; chick's only got so many lives. Anyway, I've tried, and will continue to try, to keep Logan, Storm, and Charles as IN character as possible, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on how I did!
Next chapter, coming soon!